


Enchanted

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 2000-3000 words per chapter, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hybrid Alexis | Quackity, Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), M/M, Mutual Pining, No Smut, No beta we die like break my skin and drain me, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Respawn Mechanics, Shapeshifter Alexis | Quackity, Winged Alexis | Quackity, light arguing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Enchant: To attract and move deeplyOrTwo people go on an adventure, fall in love along the way, but never tell the other.Rated teen and up for swearing-------------------------------------------------------------------------I AM SHIPPING THE CHARACTERS NOT THE CC'S OKAY THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION IF YOU WANT SHIPS OF THE REAL PEOPLE GET OUT OF HERE
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity/Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 317
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Aurora Borealis

The playful conversation starts

Counter all your quick remarks, like passing notes in secrecy

And it was enchanting to meet you

All I can say is I was enchanted to meet you

\--

“Are we there yet?”

“Quackity, I swear to God.” Technoblade groaned. “Does this look like our final destination to you?” He waved wildly at the miles upon miles of snow they still have to walk through. “Because to me, this doesn’t seem like the DreamSMP!”

The duo had been walking miles and miles to get to the fabled DreamSMP. They had both heard stories about the place. They heard that Hybrids were treated as equals, and that nobody was ever harrassed, never bothered, for their looks. After hearing about that, it sounded pretty nice to the duo. They asked for the way to get there, and set off.

“Well, maybe the DreamSMP is in the snow! You never know!”

“Quackity, they told us to walk through the snow and we’ll get to the mountains. We haven’t even made it to the mountains.”

“My feet hurt!” Quackity whined, changing the subject.

“Well that’s too damn bad, because we’re still going to walk!” Techno snapped, shaking his head a little bit before pushing on ahead.

Quackity wrapped his wings around his body, maybe hoping that the wings would help him keep warm. “I had to be a duck..” He muttered to himself. “Why couldn’t I be a penguin hybrid?” He huffed, quickening his pace to meet back up with Technoblade.

If you looked at the two, you wouldn’t expect them to be friends. Quackity was a little short, and had even smaller wings that barely made it down to his waist. He couldn’t fly with them if he tried, because they would never be able to carry his body weight. However, he looked friendly and welcoming. You could probably be his friend if you tried.

Technoblade, on the other hand, looked cold and unwelcoming. The only ‘fun’ thing about him was his brightly colored pink hair that was put into a braid. Other than that, he had an unfriendly glare and a small frown always painted on his face. He had scars on his cheeks and his tusks pointed upwards, sharpened, as if one day they would be used as weapons.

“So uh, Techno, do you know of ways to pass the time?” Quackity asked, smoothing out some of the feathers in his wings that the wind moved the wrong way.

“No.”

“Oh, come on! I’m sure you know of some ways to pass the time!” Quackity smiled. “I know a way! It’s called having a conversation!”

“Well I know one. It’s called shutting the hell up.” Techno glared down at Quackity, who shrunk back a little bit.

“Yeah, okay, that’s understandable I guess…” Quackity murmured, looking down at the ground.

They stayed quiet for a while, maybe fifteen minutes, the only sound that could be heard was the huffs of their breath as they kept walking, and most of the huffs were from Quackity, because he wasn’t too athletic and didn’t really know how to keep his breath steady. Not only that, but he had to take more steps and longer strides, because of the height difference between the two.

“Can we slow down?” Quackity asked after deciding he couldn’t take any more walking. “Or stop? I’d prefer if we stopped, Technoblade-”

“No.” Techno said firmly. “We’ve barely even walked, and we only packed so much food. If we stop, we’re gonna spend more days stopping and eating, which leaves us with no food. Keep moving.” His voice stayed monotone throughout every word he spoke, facing ahead, with his expression unreadable.

Quackity looked up at the piglin hybrid, his eyes moving to the braid. It was odd how someone could have genetic pink hair, but maybe it was the piglin in him? He tore his gaze away from the hair and down at his hands.

He brought his hands close to his cheeks and felt how cold they were. Damn, if only he brought mittens.

Soon, some more snow started to fall, and his wings fluttered excitedly. No matter how many times snow fell, he felt like a little kid who had just seen snow for the first time. He stuck out his tongue and started to move sporadically, trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

Technoblade looked back at Quackity and narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

Quackity blinked a few times and looked at Techno. “Uh… catching snowflakes?”

Techno snorted. “What are you? Five? Come on, stop slowing us down.”

“Why can’t I have fun on our trip?” Quackity muttered, sticking out his tongue again but following Techno again.

Looking up into the sky, he furrowed his brows at the dark gray clouds moving ever closer to them. “Uh, Tech..?”

Techno pursed his lips together and sighed. “ _What?_ ” He asked, looking back at the duck hybrid.

“Uh, do those clouds look good to you..?”

Techno looked back at the dark gray clouds and shook his head. “Oh yeah, we’re definitely getting a snowstorm. We should find a cave to camp in.”

“Wow, if only there was a good place to camp. As if we didn’t pass a cave fifteen minutes ago.” Quackity’s tone was bitter.

“You never pointed out the cave to me. If worst comes to worst, we’ll build an igloo.” Techno looked ahead, flicking his ear. “You go left, I’ll go right. We can find a cave quicker if we split up.”

The duck hybrid nodded and looked towards the left. “Are you sure..? I mean, what if we get lost?”

“Quackity, we’re the only two here. We’ll be able to hear each other if we yell loud enough.” and with that, Technoblade separated from Quackity, not looking back.

The duck hybrid never said how he was truly feeling, but his wings usually gave him away. They quivered nervously, but Quackity had a smile on his face as he wandered off to the left. He decided that he wouldn’t do the work Technoblade asked him too. Now, he could act like a child without having someone glare at him and tell him to keep moving.

He flopped down into the snow, shivering at the feeling of the cold on his soft feathered wings. He made a few snow angels, threw some snow in the air, and even made a snowman, using the coal he had saved for if they ever had to cook for it’s face. It was fine, they had more coal anyways.

After slowly getting bored of the snow, he walked away from his little art projects, fluttering his wings a little to shove the snow off of them. He kept walking.

And walking,

And walking.

It seemed as if the walking would never stop. The gray clouds were growing ever closer to him, and he stared warily before pressing on. He hadn’t heard any shouts for his name yet, so he kept walking. He missed his walking buddy already though. Despite the glares, and cold words, they were friends.

He kept moving forward, and soon the gentle snow that had fallen down turned into a harsher snowfall.

‘Quackity!” He heard a faint voice call. He looked back, and squinted, but he couldn’t see anything. The snow was getting harsher and harsher every minute.

“Quackity!” The voice called again.

“...Technoblade?” He called back, retracing his steps that were quickly fading as the snow covered his tracks. “Techno!” He called again, louder this time. “Techno! I’m over here!” He ran forward, the snow making him stumble every few steps. It was hard to run in the snow if you didn’t pick up your feet enough.

“Quackity?” The duck hybrid could finally see a figure making its way towards him. “Quackity! I found an abandoned igloo back that way. We have to go- now.”

Quackity nodded and followed Technoblade, trying to keep his steps and strides as long as Technoblade’s were. He dared to look back, and saw almost immediately their footprints were already covered. They wouldn’t be able to find where the igloo was anymore at this rate.

The snow kept slowing Quackity down. The wind picked up, and he spread out his wings to help him find a balance, which also made him collect a lot of snow under his feathers. He was slowing down faster and faster. “Techno, wait!” He called out into the snow.

Techno looked back at the duck who was now just struggling in the snow. He muttered something under his breath and walked closer to the duck. He brought his arm under Quackity’s legs and picked him up bridal style, supporting his shoulders.

Quackity let out a squawk of surprise and tried to struggle away. “Hey! Dumbass! I know we’re in a snowstorm right now, but I can still walk, asshole!” It was hard to hear his voice due to the wind.

“Just shut up and let me get you to our new camp.” Technoblade muttered into Quackity’s ear, his voice low.

Quackity thought about this for a little bit, before nodding and slowly snaking his arms around Techno’s neck and closing his eyes to make sure no snow got into his eyes.

He wasn’t sure how long it took for them to get to the igloo Techno found, but he heard a _click_ and then the sound of a door opening, before being lowered to the ground. He found his footing quickly and studied the environment. It seemed pretty safe, his instincts weren’t telling him to run, so that must have been a good sign.

“Some words of advice, Quackity.” Techno stared down at the duck hybrid. “When I say help me find a place to camp, I don’t mean make snowmen.”

Quackity felt his skin grow hot, blush creeping up his skin. “I- uh- erm-” He tried to find the right words to say.

Techno sank lower to the ground and met Quackity’s eye level. “I mean it.” He growled, his voice already going a little raspy from screaming for Quackity while outside.

The duck hybrid’s eyes widened, breath hitching. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry Techno.” He nodded quickly and turned around to just look anywhere except Techno, embarrassed.

He went rigid as he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Quackity. Look at me.”

Quackity stayed unmoving, holding his breath.

“Quackity.”

The duck hybrid shoved the hand off his shoulder and moved forward into the igloo. “Hey Techno, look! A trapdoor!” He laughed nervously and opened the wooden trapdoor slowly. “Man, I sure do wonder what’s down there! We should check! Or maybe just me, maybe I should be left alone!” He was obviously trying to change the subject, and slowly crept down the trapdoor, making sure to not slip on the ladder.

Techno stared at the duck hybrid, confused. Was he seriously embarrassed about getting sidetracked? Maybe he was too harsh when he spoke, but that wasn’t his fault, that’s just usually how he was. He also went down the ladder, ignoring the fact Quackity wanted to go down alone.

As the two studied the environment below, they had two different reactions. Quackity’s instincts immediately went on edge and his wings flared up, as if trying to look bigger. But his wings were shaking nervously, his gaze whipping around to every object in the room, prepared to run.

Technoblade, on the other hand, had an unreadable expression, and studied the environment. He, like Quackity, was studying every object in the room, but took out his sword, prepared to fight anything that would come his way.

The two stayed silent for a few minutes, until realising there was no threat. Quackity slowly lowered his wings, but kept himself on alert. He glanced towards Technoblade, and looked at the hair again. He wasn’t too sure why his eyes were always attracted to the hair, if he was honest.

Techno looked towards Quackity, following his eyes. “Hey so uh, it’s safe here, so we should like, probably eat.”

Quackity’s gaze broke away from the hair quickly and he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. We should eat.” He moved towards his bag and took out a loaf of bread, breaking it in half and handing the other half to Techno. By now, his all-over-the-place brain had forgotten about the snowman thing, and dove into the bread, devouring it in very few bites.

Techno took his half of the bead and slowly ate, watching Quackity devour it. “Were you that hungry?”

“We didn’t have lunch!” Quackity argued. “Don’t look at me like that, if you barely had breakfast and no lunch, you’d be hungry too!”

Techno snorted. “You told me you weren’t hungry for breakfast. That’s on you.”

Quackity stayed quiet, realizing techno was correct, and cleared his throat to talk again. “So… what now? This storm can go on for a while now.”

Techno shrugged. “I guess we wait it out.”

“Maybe you can carry me again until the snow dies down.” Quackity laughed. “You’ve carried me already, and I think I’m the reason why you aren’t just pushing through the snow. Who’s to say you can’t carry me more?”

Techno frowned. “No.”

Quackity wasn’t sure why his stomach dropped in disappointment. “Oh, well, it was worth a try.” He stood up and shook the crumbs off of his lap. “So, should we sleep down here or up on the carpet?”

“The carpet.” Techno said almost immediately. “The stone will make it colder. We’re going up to the carpet.”

Quackity gave a nod of acknowledgement and moved towards the ladder. “Then I’m gonna go set up my sleeping area, you can set up your own for all I care, not my problem.”

Once the two had set up their sleeping bags, Quackity moved his way into his own, and felt a shiver go down his spine. It was already cold.

Whatever, He’d just tough it out, no worries.

He wrapped his wings around himself slowly, and closed his eyes, trying to drift off to sleep, but sleep never came.

He turned to where Techno was sleeping and saw the man fast asleep. Quackity was jealous of how quickly he could fall asleep.

The duck hybrid slowly moved out of his sleeping bag, careful not to wake up the piglin hybrid, and peeked outside the door. The snow had moved to a slow fall, thankfully. He opened the door and peeked outside. The cold air stung his cheeks, but he stepped outside nonetheless.

Looking up at the stars was one of the ways he calmed himself down. He used to look up at the stars all the time when he was younger, and they were always there, never moving. Sure, the constellations came and went, but in time, they would come back, and he would be able to admire their beauty all over again.

But looking up into the sky tonight, he saw something different instead of the stars.

He saw colors dancing across the sky, shining brightly and floating above him calmly. The colors were a mixture of greens, blues, pinks, and yellows, and how he adored it.

He wanted nothing but to fly up into all the colors and dance around in them at that moment. Maybe there was someone calling for him up there, someone who would understand him. Sure, he had Technoblade, but the only thing they had in common was that they were hybrids. And no matter how much he enjoyed the piglin hybrid’s company, he knew as soon as they made it to the DreamSMP, they would split apart and never speak to each other again.

The light show didn’t last long, and slowly faded away, but the stars appeared again. It was a cold and bitter September, but he could spot Virgo easily.

He stayed up, watching the stars for god knows how long, but soon, he went back inside, muttering a soft “Night.” To the stars that comforted him each night.

He moved back into his sleeping bag, and looked over at Technoblade. When he was sleeping, he had a different look on his face then he normally did when he was awake. He looked more… calm. As if nothing bad had ever happened to him, despite the scars that were etched on his face.

Quackity wanted to do nothing more than watch him at that moment. He was so pretty when he slept.

He quickly blinked away those thoughts, shaking his head slowly. Why was he thinking that? There was no need to think about that.

In the morning, he would blame those thoughts on the late night. But also in the morning, he would find that he was no longer cold, because of a soft velvet cape wrapped around his shoulders.


	2. Virgo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More snow ahaha

This night is sparkling, don't you let it go

I'm wonder struck, blushing all the way home

\--

When Quackity finally decided to get up in the morning, he slowly shuffled out of the sleeping bag, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He gripped the cape tightly, as if the velvet cape could dissolve into the ground at any moment and leave him.

He stood up, clipping the cape around his neck and wrapping it around his body. Technoblade wasn’t anywhere in sight, and for a moment, he was scared the piglin hybrid ditched him, until he remembered the trapdoor.

He opened it slowly and moved even slower down the ladder. When he landed on the stone, spreading his wings out for a brief moment to stabilize himself, he saw Techno just staring at him.

“Well good morning.” Technoblade huffed out. “Took ya long enough.”

Quackity hummed in response, his mind still only half awake. “I’m hungry.” He complained, stretching. “What are we having for breakfast?”

“Do you always complain? There is just no stopping you complaining, is there?” Technoblade teased, pulling out another loaf of bread. “I know it’s not much, but we gotta ration our food.”

Quackity snatched the loaf of bread quickly, digging into it. “I say,” he declared, his mouth full of food, “that we just have a big feast today! Like, an extremely big feast that will fill both of us!” His wings fluttered a little bit at the thought. “With cake, and steak, and roasted vegetables!”

Techno let out a small laugh and shook his head. “No, we can’t do that, you know we can’t. Good try though, the thought you put in my head almost persuaded me. Now let's get going, we have a lot of walking to do today.” He pushed past Quackity, quickly giving him a small head nudge before climbing up the ladder, leaving Quackity alone.

The duck hybrid would never admit how warm and fuzzy he felt when Techno did the head nudge. He quickly ate the rest of his bread and got moving.

He never actually changed out of his old clothes last night, which was gross, but they had to ration everything, even their clothes, I guess. He wrapped up his sleeping bag, stored it away, and felt the cape brush his ankles.

“Oh, yeah. Hey Techno, this cape is yours, yeah?”

Techno looked at him quizzically. “Yeah, why do ya ask?”

“Uh… well, I have it right now. Do you want it back?” Quackity scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

Techno was silent for a few seconds before speaking again. “No, you keep it.”

“Really? Techno, we’re sharing clothes? We’re basically boyfriends already!” Quackity teased, nudging Techno a bit.

The piglin hybrid let out a snort. “Yeah, right. I just don’t want you to whine and whine and whine. You do that a lot you know.”

Quackity didn’t want to think about the way his heart sank at the pointed comment. He just rolled his eyes and brushed off the feeling. “Whatever. You ready to go, big guy?”

“Sure. We have everything packed, so let’s go.” Techno opened the door to the igloo and Quackity dashed out. The snow that had fallen during the storm yesterday had felt like powder, and it was easy to walk through, thankfully.

The duck hybrid looked back at Techno, smiling slightly before dashed ahead. Techno just kept walking.

“C’mon man! I thought we had to walk a lot! It’d be a lot more fun if we ran!”

“No.”

Quackity shrugged. “Alright, see ya later I guess. I’m gonna run and there’s nothing you can do about it!” He let out a cackle and left Technoblade.

  
  
  


So, that was a mistake.

When Techno found Quackity once again, he found him panting loudly, lying in the snow on his stomach, his wings barely slowing from under the cape.

“You good?” Techno asked, obviously not caring that much, but extended a hand to help the duck hybrid up.

Quackity took the hand and was hoisted up. “Yeah, yeah. Just… out of… breath.” He wheezed out.

Techno patted his back a few times before looking ahead. “We still have land we need to cover. Are you ready to walk again now?”

Quackity nodded and walked along, putting a soft smile on his face as he walked along. Soon, because Techno was that tall, he overtook Quackity, and the duck hybrid was left with just staring at the pink braid.

He tore his gaze away from the hair, only for his eyes to slowly move to look at it again. His hands itched to intertwine and weave things together. His bird instincts slowly going into overdrive. He forced his hands down to his sides and tried not to think about the hair.

 _Bird shit, I suppose._ He thought, before focusing on something else, anything else, than the hair.

He shook his head a little bit, staring down at the snow. “How much longer until we get out of the snow..?” He mumbled.

Techno pulled back from Quackity, but still walked at the same pace with him. “I’m not sure. Hopefully, if we keep walking at this rate, we’ll make it out in two more days.”

Quackity buried his face into his hands and groaned, His wings flapping angrily, before the velvet sent another small shiver down his fine. “I hate the cold!” He whined, “It doesn’t help my feathers at all, I have to make sure they don’t fall off, the wind stings my face, and the snowstorm really scared me last night!” He stomped his feet into the snow a few times, resembling an angry toddler.

“Too bad. We can fix your feathers when we make camp tonight, if they need fixing, that is.” 

  
  


They walked in silence for God knows how long.

  
  


Techno squinted, narrowing his eyes. “I can see the top of the mountains from here. I was wrong earlier. If we walk at the same pace tomorrow, we’ll definitely make it to the mountains.”

Quackity blinked a few times. “Wait, wait, backtrack.” His breath turned into a small, misty cloud due to the cold while he spoke. “ _We_ ? Buddy, I think you mean _me_. I do not care how close we are, you aren’t allowed to touch my wings. They’re off limits.” His wings flared up, trying to be intimidating. His hands made a little X in his hands to exaggerate what he was saying.

Techno stared at the duck hybrid, locking eyes before glancing at the wings and shrugging.  
“‘Kay. My bad, thought I could touch ‘em.” He looked forward again, walking at a faster pace again.

Quackity’s wings dropped to the ground in disappointment at the thought of having to walk faster. His already sore feet were screaming at him to stop.

He shivered again at the feeling of the velvet brushing up against his wings, before willing his legs to move faster to meet up with Technoblade again.

  
  


As the sun lowered to the ground, Quackity stretched, glancing towards Techno. “So uh, you do notice the sun lowering to the ground, right?”

“Yup.” Techno said, glancing towards Quackity.

“And like, are we going to stop?” Quackity popped the p. “Or what? Cause like I don’t know about you, but I’m getting fucking hungry dude. We never have lunch nowadays, if you haven't noticed, and like eight hours without food just doesn’t cut it for me.”

“We can stop when it becomes night.” Techno said gruffly.

“But-”

“No buts. You wanted to get out of the snow, duck man.” Techno pointed his finger towards Quackity’s chest. “You wanna stop? We can stop. But I don’t wanna hear you complain tomorrow if we do.”

Quackity had a slight frown appear on his face, but stayed silent as he kept walking.

He got lost into his thoughts, his thoughts being random little tidbits.

_Thank god it isn’t snowing that hard._

_When’s dinner?_

_Technoblade’s hair is pretty._

_Pink hair is cool._

_I’m cold._

_Technoblade’s probably warm._

_Technoblade,_

_Technoblade,_

_Technoblade._

_...I’m hungry._

He shook his head a little bit, before turning off his mind, now only focused on the walking. He now found that thinking was annoying. Seriously, what was wrong with him? It was definitely the fact that Technoblade had been the only person he’d been with for the past couple of days, and now his brain was just thinking about him. Yeah, that was it.

He was satisfied with that excuse, and continued to walk, his frown turning into a small smile.

  
  


“Okay, I think we can stop.”

“Thank God!” Quackity groaned, quickly moving into a sitting position, before smiling and letting his wings flutter at the feeling of rest. “But uh, there’s nothing around here to sleep in, big guy.”

Technoblade looked down at the snow, and back at Quackity.

Quackity immediately dropped the smile. “You can’t be serious.”

“The ground is right there.”

“But it’s gonna be fuckin’ cold, man!” The duck hybrid pouted.

“Too bad. If you don’t wanna be cold, you can go retrieve the coal you put on your snowman, and start a fire for us.” Techno retorted, lying his sleeping bag down. “Yeah, don’t think I didn’t see that. It’s your fault that you’re gonna be cold tonight, not mine.”

Quackity pursed his lips together and didn’t speak again. Techno had the power to easily surprise, guilt trip, and shut him up at the same time. He slowly laid his sleeping bag down, and unclipped the cape he had been wearing all day, letting his wings stretch out without shivering from the fabric.

He smoothed out his feathers quickly, letting a few loose ones fall to the ground. Techno was already asleep by the time Quackity was done fluffing out his wings. God, how did that man fall asleep so quickly?

He stretched his wings one last time before slowly moving into his sleeping bag, staring up into the sky.

The stars glittered brightly, and he could easily find the constellations. The Big Dipper, The Little Dipper, Virgo… it was surprising how this game of finding-the-constellations made him grow drowsy immediately. He let his eyes close, and he was slipped into his world of dreams.

His dreams (that he remembered at least) were always… odd. Sometimes they involved him being a world renowned pop star, singing for his many fans. Sometimes they involved him just being forced to drink orange juice by God himself again and again. Who knew what his dreams brought?

In this dream, he was braiding hair. Techno’s hair, to be exact. He carefully intertwined his hair, picking up some gems off of the ground and adding them to his hair, making them shiny. When he stepped back from his finished product. He didn’t even get to see Techno’s face before he woke up from the cold.

The wind stung his face as his eyes flew open. It was still night time, and when he closed his eyes again, it took him forever to fall asleep again, with no dreams to keep him company.

  
  
  


The next time he woke up, Techno was nudging him with his shoe.

“Wake up. It’s time to go.”

Quackity slowly sat up, stretching out his wings, letting them quiver a little when he tried stretching them past their limit, and mumbled something unintelligible other than the word “Hungry?”

“You can eat while we walk.” Techno said, tossing a loaf of bread into the snow.

Quackity stood up, wrapping up his sleeping bag, his brain only half awake. Once he was packed and ready, he grabbed the bread before taking a bite and moving back from the food, still chewing. “Hey, what about you?”

“Me?” Techno hummed. “What about me?”

“You haven’t eaten.” Quackity tore the bread in half and handed the unwanted half to the piglin hybrid. “You should eat too, Technoblade.”

“I’ve already eaten-”

“That is a lie and you know it. You wouldn’t waste two loaves of bread and then turn around and talk about ‘wasting food.’” He mocked Techno’s tone. ‘And- hey, wait a minute. You gave me a whole loaf of bread yesterday too!” He stepped closer, his wings raising slowly. “Don’t tell me you only ate dinner yesterday?”

Techno stared at Quackity, blinking a few times. His gaze flashed with an emotion Quackity couldn’t decipher, because it was gone the moment it appeared. The piglin hybrid stayed silent.

“You are not giving up your share of food for my sake. You hear me, Technoblade? You are half piglin, and you belong in the nether, where it is warm. Being in the cold probably doesn’t help you. You need to stay strong, because we both know I wouldn’t be able to fight anything if I really tried.” He forced the loaf of bread into Techno’s hands. “We can eat while we walk.” He said, glaring at Technoblade before marching along and taking another bite of his half of the bread.

Techno just stared at Quackity, flabbergasted. Quackity wasn’t the type to get mad. In fact, he usually just brushed things off and kept walking along, a smile on his face while he whined. So why had he gotten mad at Techno for giving his share to him. He took a small bite, and followed Quackity along.

Today, it was Quackity’s turn to stay ahead. Because technoblade had fallen back to ponder about why Quackity had gotten so frustrated over a loaf of bread. He shrugged it off after a few minutes by deciding the duck hybrid was just moodier than usual, even though he was always pretty moody.

As Quackity walked, he wasn’t even realizing how his wings were puffing up every ten minutes or so. And after he did, he just didn’t care that his wings were puffing up for warmth. He refused to wear the cape again. No matter how comfy it felt when he slept, it wasn’t fun to walk with.

The duck hybrid didn’t even realize he had brought his wing closer to him to brush off the feathers that had detached from him until he brushed over a certain feather that hurt. He looked back and saw the trail of yellow feathers he had left behind. Oops.

He looked up at Techno and gave him a friendly wave before focusing back on the feather that hurt. He brought his hands close to the wing, using one to grip it in place while he dug the feather out with his other hand.

He gripped the feather, and pulled.

“FUCK!” He yelled out, the wing he gripped spasmed in his hand.

Damn, he didn’t expect it to hurt that much.

Techno was at his side in seconds. “You good?” He asked, looking at the wing and back at Quackity.

“Yeah, yeah. It was just a feather.” Quackity muttered, staring at the feather that had hurt. He studied the tip and- wait… 

There was blood on the tip of that feather.

“Oh, fuck.” He muttered under his breath, looking at the spot where he pulled the feather. And, his bright yellow feathers were already slowly being bleached red.

He let in a small breath, and looked back at Techno. “Uh, I pulled a blood feather, can you like, get a bandage or something-”

He looked back at the wing, and wow. Do not underestimate the power of blood, because it had made the feathers surrounding the wound a deep red already. His nervousness peaked and his hands started to shake.

He stopped himself from walking, and slowly sat on the ground, scared if he kept moving, he would eventually faceplant. “Techno? Now.”

Techno shoved a wool bandage into his hands. “I already got them.”

Quackity nodded his thanks and quickly wrapped the wound, thankful he had been taught what to do if this ever happened at a young age. Once he had wrapped it up, he let out a shaky sigh. He stood up slowly, flapping his wings even slower, as if he was scared he had broken them. “Okay. We’re fine. Yeah. We can keep going.”

Techno looked at him carefully before watching him walk onwards. “Are you sure? You seem pretty shaken up by that-”

“It’s fine!” He said, a smile already plastered on his face. “It was just the anxiety, y’know? I’m fine. I promise.”

Quackity’s hands were still shaking as he continued onward. He had to will his hands down, to not touch the wing. He was okay, just shaken up. The bandage would stop the bleeding. He would be fine.

He kept walking the whole day, feeling shaken up for the whole day. Every other hour, he would get lightheaded, but he would keep walking. He had been complaining too much, he didn’t want to complain more.

He felt a hand touch his back, and he went rigid. He looked up to see Techno staring back at him.

“You’ve been shaky all day. I’m scared you’re going to fall over. Just walk with me, okay?”

Quackity nodded slowly and that’s how he spent the rest of the walk. Close to Techno.

He kept a smile on his face, but his hands kept shaking, even with Techno nearby.

  
  
  


Techno was warm.

  
  
  


At one point, the wing closest to Techno brushed up against the piglin hybrid’s cape, and a shiver was sent down his spine again.

Techno looked down at Quackity and stepped a little bit away, keeping close enough to have the hand rest on his back, but far enough away so that Quackity’s wings wouldn’t shiver at the feeling of velvet.

  
  
  


When the sun set, they had made it to the mountains.

They had decided that a special dinner should mark the day they made it out of the snow. Techno brought out some vegetables and mushrooms, and was making a stew.

To Quackity, it smelled delicious.

The duck hybrid glanced at his wings, and brought his hands up to it, adding pressure to the damaged wing.

The wool bandage just got more soaked with blood.

_Oh. So that’s why I have been feeling lightheaded all day. I haven’t stopped the bleeding._

_…_

_Oh my god. I haven’t stopped the bleeding._

He quickly added more and more pressure onto the wing until the pressure became too much to bear and he let out a yelp of pain.

He just gritted his teeth and kept adding pressure.

He felt hands grab his wrists and move them away slowly from the wing.

“You will break your wing if you add any more pressure.” Techno said, a small frown on his face. “Add a small amount of pressure, take a few deep breaths, calm yourself, and we can redress the wing after dinner.”

Quackity nodded slowly, and added small amounts of pressure instead of one big push of pressure. He took a break to eat the stew, and it tasted amazing.

Once they finished dinner, Techno helped undo the bandage.

“That’s why the bleeding stopped. You didn’t apply the bandage tight enough.”

“Oh, my bad. Let me focus on that part while I’m, y’know, bleeding out.”

“You weren’t bleeding out, you big baby.” Techno snorted while applying a new wrap onto his wings. Quackity tensed at how tight the bandages were wrapped, but Techno promised it would make the bleeding stop quicker.

When he settled into bed that night, The stars shone brighter than before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ello! I'm trying to make chapters 3,000 words each, because I feel bad and I feel like I can do more than just 2,000 words per chapter, so sorry if there's a lot of detail that isn't needed!
> 
> I also had like 1,000 words already written but had to scrap it because I didn't like where it was going, so it took me forever to figure out how to write this chapter ahaha
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed! Kudos are always appreciated :)


	3. Cold

This is me praying that this was the very first page

Not where the story line ends

My thoughts will echo your name, until I see you again

\--

Quackity liked hikes.

Sure, he wasn’t that active, but if someone asked if he wanted to go on a hike, he wouldn’t turn the hike down. In fact, he’d probably bring along a polaroid camera and take a photo at the top to remember the moment.

He liked hikes.

That’s what he tried to tell himself as he had to climb up the mountain. Unlike hikes he used to go on, the mountain was steep, and super windy, and one wrong step could send you tumbling down.

The snow didn’t help.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention the snow was still on the mountain?

The snow was slippery and it was hard to get a footing on the goddamn mountain. They were barely fifteen minutes in until Quackity had to ask Techno for help on a certain slippery slope.

Techno’s gaze softened a little bit as he watched Quackity struggle for a little bit on a certain portion of the mountain. He extended his hand to the duck hybrid, and Quackity graciously took it.

To make matters worse, it started snowing again.

Quackity groaned and brought the beanie down below his eyes, and slumped to the ground, giving into defeat.

Techno looked back, and flicked his ears aimlessly. “Quackity. Get up, do you know how far we have to go?”

“Go without me!” Quackity mumbled. “I do not care anymore. I will either die or just turn back in a few hours anyways, this mountain is too cold and windy to my feathers-”

Techno rolled his eyes and moved back down the mountain a little bit, now just picking Quackity up, which brought out a little “Hey!” from the duck.

As Techno climbed with Quackity on his shoulders, he slowly felt Quackity’s muscles untense after a few minutes of climbing.

“Why do you whine so much?” Techno asked Quackity.

Quackity shivered. “I’ve been in the cold too much. I can survive the cold for normal amounts of time, but the wind…” Quackity shivered again, and his muscles tenses up again. “It’s too much for me.”

Techno snorted. “You’ll live. I’m a hybrid that is from literal hell, which if you didn’t know, is extremely hot. If I can live, you can too.”

“You have more-” The duck hybrid shivered again. “body fat though. You can live through extreme temperatures, because you had to live through extreme heat. I never did. I lived in a little pond area where the temperature was always sunny, with a few drizzle days.”

“You lived in a _pond_?!” Technoblade looked at Quackity, whose wings were now slowly curling around Techno’s body.

“I’m a duck, aren’t I?”

“Well, yes, but the key word is _hybrid_. Shouldn’t you be living in a house and not a place where actual ducks live?”

Quackity shivered another time before he spoke, his wings wrapping quickly around Techno’s body instead of the slow process it was doing earlier. “Ponds were nice…” He murmured softly into Technoblade’s ear, wrapping his whole body tighter around the others body now.

Techno dropped the subject, instead, now focusing on two things. One, the weight of Quackity was now wrapped tighter around his waist, and it was harder to walk. And two, Quackity wasn’t wrong. The duck hybrid did feel colder than normal.

How do you warm someone up? You add more clothing, don’t you? He slowly adjusted his arms so he could take off his cape and yet hold Quackity at the same time, and he moved the cape over Quackity.

The duck hybrid shoved it off immediately, whining softly about the velvet and his wings not mixing well together.

“Quackity, it doesn’t matter if you feel discomfort, you’re cold. Now just shut up and take the warmth.” Technoblade said, keeping his voice monotone as he shoved the cape onto Quackity again, but Quackity shoved harder. He threw it off of himself as soon as a gust of wind whipped up, and it sent the cape flying away into the air, leaving the two.

“Great…” Techno muttered. “Look what you did.”

Quackity just snuggled closer into the body heat, his wings shivering. “How much longer..?”

Techno looked up. They were about halfway. They could keep climbing up, but it would just get colder and there would be harsher winds. Or, they could go around. Sure, it would take longer, and they would maybe have to stay the night out here, but it was better than Quackity dying of frostbite. “Sorry bud, it’s gonna take a while.” He murmured.

Quackity groaned and shivered again, snuggling closer to Techno to get more heat.

Most of the walk consisted of Technoblade asking Quackity questions to make sure he didn’t fall asleep, and Quackity giving half-assed answers in return. He did learn a little bit of useful information though.

“How did you live in the pond though? Like, isn’t the pond deep? Or did you just learn how to swim at a young age?”

“Swimming is an instinct.” Quackity murmured. “I have webbed feet for a reason.”

“You have webbed feet?”

“...mhm.”

“And you never thought about telling me this before?”

“mmmmmmmmmmmm… nope.”

He also learned that Quackity didn’t have ears, only holes, like most avian species do, which is why he always wears a beanie 24/7. Without it, people would give him weird looks.

He also learned that if Quackity preened his wings well enough, water would just fall right off. He usually had a special type of oil he used to put on every couple of weeks that would make the process of needing to preen slower, but now that he didn’t have the oil on him, he would have to preen every day.

“So why doesn’t snow fall off of you easily?”

“Is snow water, dumbass?”

“Actually, yes. It is. Just frozen.”

“Is frozen water actual water though??”

“...Quackity, I don’t understand-”

  
  
  


Once the sun had sunk low enough to the ground, he dropped Quackity to the ground in a _thump_ before stretching his back. It was tiresome to carry a decent sized hybrid all day.

Quackity slowly sat up, and shivered violently. “I’m so cold…” He whined.

“I know, I know…” Technoblade murmured. “You kinda threw away our cape, so there’s nothing to keep us warm. If we get into our sleeping bags, we’re definitely gonna slip and fall down the mountain because of the snow, and just destroy all of the progress we made.”

Quackity’s wings fluttered in the cold, and shivered again. “I’m so tired…” He mumbled.

“Nope. You can not fall asleep.” He decided against sleeping altogether, picking quackity up again. The duck hybrid was obviously very unaware of his surroundings, and let out a quack of shock. Techno stifled a laugh and decided to bring it up later when he was prone to teasing.

As he kept walking all night, he felt himself go a little drowsy, and shook off the feeling. He couldn’t sleep, even though he had built up a good sleep schedule over the past few days. He was prepared to break his sleep schedule in half for the two.

  
  
  


After what felt like hours upon hours of walking, he felt a small whine close to his ear.

“Now I’m getting hot…” Quackity said, his words barely a whisper. “Are we near a town, Techno..?”

Techno’s eyes widened a little bit.

Oh shit. 

“Yeah, we are. Just stay awake please.” He asked, shoving his nervousness away and locked it up for safekeeping.

If he looked far enough, he could see the ground at the bottom of the mountain. Ah, what the hell.

He started breaking out into a run, making sure to not slip or slide. At one point, he did stumble over his own feet, but made sure to regain his footing instantly.

Once he reached the ground, he slumped down into the dirt, where only a few patches of snow lay. He didn’t think he had ever been happier to see dirt.

He looked up into the sky and watched the moon slowly move down. Damn, they would only have a few hours of sleep at most.

He spent those hours carefully massaging Quackity’s wings, preening them if you will, and helped him get warm. He tucked Quackity back into his sleeping bag, and crept into his own sleeping bag not too much later, immediately feeling sleep overtake him.

  
  
  


When he woke up, he felt someone nudging his shoulder.

He blinked his eyes open and watched as Quackity stared down at him.

They stared at each other for a solid minute or so, before the duck hybrid spoke again.

“I’m cold.”

Technoblade immediately shot up, looking at Quackity up and down. “You’re not warm?”

Quackity furrowed his brows. “Uh… no? Why would I be? I just told you I was cold, dumbass. Besides, weren’t we in snow just a few… hours? I think hours. Weren’t we just in the snow a few hours ago? Why would I be warm-”

Quackity’s words were cut off as he was pulled into a hug by Techno, who was muttering words of thanks to whatever God was out there.

“Uh… buddy, care to let go?” Quackity asked, squirming out of his grip.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just…” Techno trailed off in thought. “Nevermind. It’s nothing.” Techno thought it would be best if Quackity never knew he was surely going to die of hypothermia.

Quackity stared at Techno as if he had grown a second head, and shrugged. “Uh, okay. Fuckin weirdo…” Quackity muttered to himself, digging his hands into dirt. “Anyways, look! Dirt!”

“Yeah, I saw.” Technoblade let a small smile grow on his face, watching the duck hybrid be ecstatic at the sight of dirt.

Quackity was staring at the dirt in awe, flexing and unflexing his hands into the dirt. He sniffed the air, and smelled a slight whiff of salt into the air. “Is the.. ocean nearby?”

Techno nodded. “Yeah. The biomes change pretty quickly ‘round here. Couldn’t explain it to ya if I tried.” Techno stood up, rubbing his eyes. “Ready to go get a ship?”

“A ship?” Quackity asked, quickly scampering after Techno as the piglin hybrid started to walk away. “Are you dumb? Like, there’s no ships nearby!”

“We can build one.”

“That will take forever.” Quackity whined.

“And how do you suggest we get across the ocean?”

Quackity stayed silent for a bit in thought. “I can swim. I have-”

“Webbed feet, I know.”

“How do you know that?”

It was Techno’s turn to be silent. “Anyways. We should just build a boat.”

“Buddy, _we_ ? No, no. I think this means _you_ build the boat while _I_ have a fun time at the beach.”

Techno groaned as Quackity ran on ahead. There was no point in arguing, the duck hybrid was too stubborn anyways. Oh well, I guess it was time for some fun at the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is short, I had writers block for this chapter. Anyways, expect a beach episode soon!


	4. Beach Interlude

This night is flawless, don't you let it go

I'm wonder struck, dancing around all alone

\--

Quackity had run on ahead, feeling his feathers ripple in the wind. This wind felt nice, and felt nothing like those strong winds he felt back on the mountain. As he felt himself get slower and slower, he stopped to look back in the direction he had came from,

and there was Technoblade, in all his glory, slowly walking in the direction the duck had moved in. His mouth slightly turned down into a frown, and his eyes blinking the sleep out of them every few seconds.

Quackity watched the man for a few seconds before shrugging and running forwards again. If the mighty Technoblade wanted to act like a loser and walk, then so be it. But Quackity was going to enjoy the time in the non-snowy weather.

It was surprising how little time it took to walk out of the last few patches of snow. Soon, the snow ebbed away to a few small puddles of water on the ground, and Quackity took the time to jump in every single one.

When the duck hybrid had reached a small hill he had to climb, he took the time to wait for Technoblade to show up right beside him.

“Hey buddy! What’s up? You look extremely tired, did you just not sleep or something? Or like is it the temperature change? Is it a hybrid thing? Is it-”

Techno grabbed the wing closest to him, keeping his grip gentle, but firm, and moved Quackity close to him so they were only a few inches apart. “Stop. Talking.” Techno growled before releasing his grip. Quackity moved a few steps back, away from whatever the beast he had triggered was, and raised his hands in surrender.

“Okay! Okay! I’m sorry, jeez.” He turned his head towards the hill and grabbed Techno’s hand, completely forgetting already that the piglin hybrid had been cranky. The weather felt too nice for him to remember small details like that. He dragged Techno up the hill, and gasped in shock at the sight he saw.

There was the beach, right in front of him. The waves were small, it was obviously low tide, and the hill he had climbed seemed to have broken off, because it was a small cliff that led into the sand. He dropped down the cliff and rolled into the sand, clapping his hands in a fast rapid motion.

“Ohmygosh- It’s sand! I love sand! Techno! Techno! Techno- get your ass over here we should have some fun!” Quackity’s wings fluttered as he tried getting the sand out of his feathers.

“No thanks.” Techno grunted. “I’m gonna go make us a boat so we can get across this ocean.”

“Suit yourself…” Quackity grumbled, turning away and walking closer to the water.

  
  
  


The beach felt nice.

Of course, the weather wasn’t perfect, because they were so close to the snow still, but it definitely felt warmer.

He soaked up the sun’s rays as if it were food. He spread out his wings and let his bright yellow feathers turn golden in the light, and let out a comfortable sigh. He stood just like that for a long, long time.

  
  
  


Techno, on the other hand, was busy. He was already chopping down some trees with the iron axe he had on him, feeling the chips of the wood break free from the few trees in the area surrounding the two.

  
  
  


Quackity took off his shoes and socks, and dipped his webbed feet into the ocean. His instincts got ecstatic at just the feeling of water, and his wings puffed up in an excited manor. He quickly waded deeper and deeper into the ocean, the water up to his waist. At this point, he didn’t care that he was wearing long pants or his shirt still. Water was water, whether there were clothes on or off.

He patted the water gently with his hands, and padded around in the water. His smile kept growing and growing. As the sun rose higher and higher, the heat kept slowly but surely rising up, and by noon, it was the perfect temperature for lounging around at the beach.

He rolled out his sleeping bag, and opened it up to use as a towel as he slowly got out of the water, and lied down on his stomach, spreading his wings out to soak up the sun. God knew his wings needed it, especially since the oil his wings usually created was gone from not being properly preened in so long. It was usually just a _flatten out the feathers and move on_ kind of preen, but today he decided he would treat himself. The weather was too nice to not treat himself. He would have some lunch and then thoroughly preen his wings.

  
  
  


Techno was still chopping down trees. Sweat started to trickle down his forehead. He huffed in annoyance at the thought of Quackity just lying around having fun, but it was whatever.

He didn’t think about Quackity with his shirt off, nope.

He continued to work, and tried to stay mad at Quackity while the image was in his brain.

  
  
  


Quackity took a bite of the apple that he had stuffed into his bag. It was still juicy, and felt fresh enough. That was one good thing about the cold, it helped things stay fresh.

He took another bite of the apple, now holding it in two hands instead of one. Man, after only having bread and stew once, something juicy tasted extremely good in his mouth. He looked into his bag, and spotted some more apples. He looked to the side to see his water flask, still half full, and put two and two together, getting to work on his new marvelous plan.

  
  
  


Techno had enough wood now to make a small boat to fit Quackity, Techno, and their bags too.

Slight problem, however, the wood was still logs, and his axe looked like it was going to break any second. The piglin hybrid sighed and just kept chopping. If the axe broke… well, the Gods had given him fists for a reason.

  
  
  


Quackity squeezed the apples with all his might, getting the juices out of the, and watched as they spilled into his flask. He had chugged all of his water before impulse making apple juice, and it was at this point he wished he had some other fruits to make a fruit punch of sorts.

Well, it was whatever, because his hands were sticky now. He stood up and quickly washed off the juice into the salty water, before returning and taking a sip of the apple juice.

It wasn’t anything like store bought apple juice, but it would do.

After taking a few more sips, he closed his flask and stretched his wings out, letting them stretch to their full capacity and then some. 

He kept them extended while he preened his wings. He held the back of his wing in place with one hand so it wouldn’t move, and he preened his wings with the other hand. He started out like he normally did, by smoothing down the bent feathers, and putting some of his feathers back into the spot where they belonged. He didn’t have time to preen his feathers yesterday, but man, the harsh winds on a mountain can put your wings through a lot of trauma.

Once he was done with that, he moved through his wings to find the feathers that needed to be shed. He felt his mind drift off, the feeling he felt was nice, like it usually was when he or someone else preened his wings. He let his hands do the work while he drifted off to the nice place of calm.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been preening the singular wing for, but when he brushed a finger semi-harshly, he was snapped back to reality. Apparently, he had just been petting his wing for god knows how long. He shifted his weight and moved onto the other wing, repeating the process.

  
  
  


It was just Techno’s luck to come back with wood to find Quackity staring at his wing, his mind obviously somewhere else, while petting his wing like a weirdo, and also while soaking wet. He blinked a few times, staring at Quackity, before moving a few feet to the left of where Quackity was and dropped the wood that he had turned into planks.

The sound of wood meeting sand made Quackity snap out of whatever sort of trance he was in and jump at the sound. “Dude!” He snapped, whipping his head to look at where Techno was standing. “You couldn’t have dropped the…” He glanced down at the object that met with the sand. “The wood any nicer?”

“Sorry.” Technoblade said, obviously not sorry, before slowly piecing together the wood.

“...What the fuck is that, Techno?”

“A boat, of course. Are you blind?”

“That’s not a boat. That’s a fucking monstrosity of… I don't know. It’s just a monstrosity, Techno.”

Techno let out a laugh, and continued to build.

It was silent for a little bit, as Quackity went back to preening the front side of his wings. If Techno strained his ears enough, he could hear soft chirps coming from the duck hybrid.

Oh yeah, that reminded him.

“You quacked.” Quackity jumped again.

“Dude! Can you not see that I am obviously busy- wait, I what?” Quackity’s brows furrowed.

“Yeah. When we were scaling the mountain, I picked you up, and you quacked.”

Quackity’s skin turned red with embarrassment, and looked away in the other direction. “Yeah? Ducks quack, and I’m half duck. I do not see what the issue is here…” He grumbled.

“It was funny.”

“Yeah, it probably would be.” Quackity said, his tone obviously sarcastic. He refused to look at Technoblade. Goddamnit, he had been suppressing the quack sounds for a while now. They were always embarrassing, so why the hell did he have to quack in front of _Technoblade_ of all people?!

“Like damn, you really quacked.” Technoblade teased. “What’s next? Are you gonna _chirp_? Oh wait, I just heard you do that!” The piglin hybrid let out a gruff laugh, and Quackity just got more and more embarrassed.

“Yeah, I chirp sometimes when I preen my wings? So what?” Quackity’s wings puffed up, and that just made Techno laugh harder.

“OHMYGOD- Your wings puff up too? It would normally be pretty scary if you had big wings, but yours are so… tiny! They look like a duckling’s wings! Oh, that’s laughable. It’s truly laughable.”

“Can you cut it out already? It’s not my fault they’re small..!”

“Yeah, but like, the fact that they’re small is just funny. Because, if a normal avian hybrid were to puff out its wings, it would be intimidating-”

Quackity’s mind had a thought pop up in the back of his head, and it was his turn to smile.

“So, you’re saying size does matter?”

Technoblade’s laugh was cut off immediately and Quackity burst into laughter.

“Your face!” Quackity hollered.

  
  
  


Once the two had gotten over their laughing fit, they went back to what they were doing before. Technoblade was still building his boat, and Quackity was still preening his wings. But now he was preening the back of his wings, and it was hard to preen when you can’t really see where you’re preening.

After a bit of finicking around with the back on his wings, Quackity let out a groan and smashed his head down onto the makeshift towel. “I can't do this bullshit anymore!”

Techno looked up from the half made boat. “What? Be cool? You weren’t able to do that anyways.”

“No asshole- okay, number one, rude. Number two, I can’t preen the back on my wings and I can just _feel_ sand in them, and it doesn’t hurt, but it feels odd and-”

While going on and on about the hardships of preening wings, he felt a hand touch his feathers and he immediately reacted, swatting the hand away and hissed at Techno.

He felt himself go rigid as Techno just stared at him for a few seconds. “What the _hell_ was that? Did you just hiss?”

Quackity pursed his lips together, kicking the sand with his webbed feet for a little bit. “Yeah, some ducks can um… hiss.” He cleared his throat, obviously feeling awkward. “Anyways- I thought we agreed on my wings being off limits to everyone except myself?”

“My bad. You just talked about how you couldn’t reach your feathers, I know how to preen, and I thought I could help.”

“Man, you can. Just… ask next time instead of like, shoving your hands into my feathers.” Quackity awkwardly shuffled back to his makeshift towel and sat down, stretching his wings out again. “You won’t hurt me, right? Like, wings are extremely fragile, and yeah…” Quackity tailed off, thinking about what he was saying. “This was a mistake. Sorry, nevermind. Your hands are so big and they could easily hurt my wings and-”

“Quackity.” He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down. I won't hurt you. My dad is an avian hybrid, I know how to preen wings, and I know how to preen them correctly. Just settle back down and let me help.”

Quackity glanced at Techno and slowly relaxed his wings again. Well, tried to get as relaxed as he could, because while he trusted Techno, he trusted him to a limit. This was so intimate and he could easily get hurt. He was prepared for the sound of a snap and-

Oh. Wait, hang on. This felt nice. Techno was right when he said that he was gentle. He felt calloused hands run through his feathers. And while he normally would’ve just drifted off a little bit, he hadn’t preened the back of the wings in a long time, because he refused help from anybody, and this felt _good_. He drifted away in seconds, feeling a slight haze wash over him. Sounds seemed so far away at this point, all he could hear was the soft sighs of relief coming from his mouth.

He felt the hands slowly move the ocean water that got caught into his feathers earlier out, and his wings started feeling less heavy. He subconsciously moved back into Techno’s touch, feeling the harder presses onto his feathers as he leaned back.

He let out a small series of chirps, and he knew Techno would tease him later just like he did with the quack, but at this point, he didn’t care. That was future him’s problem, and right now, he was content with staying like this forever.

He felt Techno’s claws start at the tips of his wings, and dig all of the dirt and grime out of his wings, and he was so close to letting out a trill.

As Techno moved closer to the base of his wings, it was harder to not let out a chirp every second. It just felt so relaxing, so calm, so _nice._

When Techno pressed especially hard however, he let out a loud trill, and immediately snapped back to reality, cupping his face in his hands to hide the red creeping up on his face from the shame. “Ahaha, sorry…” He muttered, trying his hardest to not whine at the loss of pressure when Techno pulled his hands away.

“You’re… fine?” Techno asked, slowly grabbing Quackity’s wrists and moving them away from his face. “I mean, you got wings and webbed feet, it’s fine if you make bird sounds too. It’s nothing out of the ordinary now, anyways.”

Quackity gulped and nodded a few times, still feeling the heat in his cheeks from the shame. “Yeah… okay.”

Techno nodded a few times to confirm he wasn’t weirded out, and went to apply pressure on the wings to scrape the grit out of Quackity’s wings, and he let out another trill again.

He tried to move away from the haze, and be conscious about where he was, but his brain was pulled back into the haze, not noticing nor caring that he let out loud chirps and trills. It didn’t matter anymore. If it felt good, it felt good.

He whined when the pressure on his wings was taken away, and Techno snorted. “Uh, okay. That I guess was weird.”

Quackity’s smile he had plastered onto his face dropped in seconds. “Really?”

“Really.” Techno stood up and brushed the sand off of his pants. “Here, I was almost done with the boat anyways. If I keep building it at the same pace I was earlier, we can get onto the sea by tonight.”

Quackity nodded and threaded his fingers subconsciously through his wings, smiling to himself at the feeling of the feathers being soft again.

  
  
  


Once the boat had finished being built, the sun had sunk low onto the sea, and the moon was slowly rising from the opposite direction.

Techno ordered Quackity to hop into the boat, and Quackity quickly did so.

The piglin hybrid pushed the boat, Quackity, and their supplies out into the water. Quackity sputtered as a wave hit him, and his clothes and beanie got wet. He grumbled a little bit, but complained loudly when techno hopped into the boat after Quackity, causing more water to hit the two.

  
  
  


The sun was stretching high into the sky by now, and Techno had fallen asleep on the other side of the small boat, but Quackity was still wide awake, his hands now itching to pet Techno’s hair again.

Maybe he could repay Techno for preening his wings by rebraiding his hair.

He slowly edged closer to the piglin hybrid, lifting his head carefully and taking all the hair out from under his head. He laid Techno to rest in his legs, and started screeching his scalp, before threading his hands through the pink hair, untying any knots that were in his hair.

Techno’s hair was surprisingly soft and had no knots in it.

He went back to scratching the scalp for a little bit, getting lost in his thoughts. He wasn’t sure how long he had been scratching the scalp, but he heard a small purr come from the piglin hybrid.

Quackity cocked his head to the side.

_Last I checked, pigs don't purr? Do piglins?_

He had learned not to question a lot of things when it came to hybrids, but he was actually confused.

After a while of thinking (maybe two minutes of thinking) he just decided to not care. His hands got to work as they slowly braided the hair, smiling down at the purring thing in his lap.

After he finished braiding his hair, he scratched the scalp maybe one last time and let out a small sleepy trill. He nudged Techno off of his body, and curled up on himself, the soft lap of waves hitting the boat drifting him off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I couldn't stop writing today.  
> Anyways, finally we're getting a smidge of tension.  
> Also, I've been listening to beach hotel music to help me picture this beach episode, help it's actually enjoyable-
> 
> Also Also, help im running out of lyrics wtf do I do oh no


	5. Sailing

I'll spend forever wondering if you knew

I was enchanted to meet you

\--

The next time Quackity woke up, the sun was high in the sky already, and the waves lapped against the boat in a rhythmic fashion.

He sat up slowly, yawning, before his surroundings slowly started to sink in. They were still in the middle of the ocean, but now there was no land to be found. The only thing he saw was water.

Looking right ahead of him, however, Technoblade was staring at him. He stared back for a silent minute, before waving awkwardly. “Good morning..?”

Techno flinched a little, blush dusting his pale cheeks. “Oh, yeah. Good morning. Uh- sorry if it looked like I was staring at you, I-I wasn’t! I was lost in my own thoughts and I didn’t notice I was staring at you and-”

“Techno.” Quackity cut off the piglin hybrid before he could start rambling and defending himself. “It’s fine. Seriously, I get it, I’ve done that before too. It was definitely more awkward when you’re staring at someone in town instead of your friend.” He let out a small laugh.

“Yeah, I…” Techno struggled to find his words, still embarrassed. “I suppose.”

They sunk into a comfortable silence, with Quackity staring at the waves, and Techno staring ahead to where they had to go.

“So, uh…” Quackity cleared his throat. “I know that like, I swam in the ocean a little bit yesterday, and I know that my clothes are still a little bit soggy from that, but can I uh… swim in the ocean? Or is the boat going too fast to where I won’t be able to catch up if I go into the water?” He lowered one of his hands into the water, smiling at the feeling of the cool liquid on his hand.

“Hm..” Techno looked down at the water. “Yeah. I suppose you technically could.”

A small smile appeared on Quackity’s face and he nodded. “Okay. Cool, thanks for telling me.”

Techno nodded and stared at Quackity for a little bit before speaking again. “So are you gonna get in the water or not? Because like, the water is calm right now.”

Quackity looked up from the water. “Oh yeah! My bad, I got lost in thought.”

And just like that, Quackity was gone, and in his place, stood a small duck. Techno stared down at it, his eyes widening slightly. “What the _fuck_?!” His brain couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. The duck looked more like a duckling, with brown feathers that looked closer to yellow as it moved down to his stomach. The wings did look like Quackity’s wings, however.

The duck quacked a few times, and flapped his wings a little bit, his feathers puffing up. It waddled closer to the edge of the boat, having to jump up a few times to actually get up, before jumping down into the calm waves below.

Techno peeked over the edge of the boat, still trying to comprehend everything. Where did Quackity go? And why was there a duck now? Why did the duck look like Quackity? Was the duck actually Quackity?

The duck swam around a little bit, looking back at Techno. The duck’s eyes widened slightly and swam closer to the boat again. It quacked a few times, looked at Techno and back at the boat a few times. Techno slowly moved his hand closer to the duck and carefully lifted it up out of the water. He placed it back down on the boat, and Quackity appeared out of thin air again, the small smile he had on his face was widened into a cheerful smile.

“Oh man, that was great!” He giggled, flapping his wings happily a few times. “Ah man, do we have a towel? Cause now I’m soaking wet again-” He stopped talking abruptly as he stared at the dumbfound expression Techno wore. “Uh, hey?”

“ _What the FUCK_???” Techno asked, his voice raising. “Wha- how- HUH?” He looked towards the ocean, where the duck was just swimming, and back at Quackity. He waves his hands wildly, trying to put his jumbled and confused thoughts into words.

Quackity searched through Techno’s expression. “What..?” He murmured, before he understood. “Oh!” He looked towards the water. “I thought I told you.”

“Told me what?” Techno huffed, his hands now waving towards the creature that was Quackity. “That you can be… a- a fuckin… duck? Like, not only are you a duck hybrid, but you can also be just a duck? What the-”

“Let me explain!” Quackity talked quickly, trying to cut Techno off from saying anything else. “Uh, okay…” He took his beanie off to let it dry in the sun, and brushed his hair back. “So uh, yeah. I’m a shapeshifter.”

Techno stared at Quackity, a small frown forming on his face. “Well no _shit_.” He huffed. “I need you to explain this to me a little more, buddy. You kinda kept this from me for a while. And like, we’ve been friends even before this adventure, so I feel kinda betrayed right now.”

Quackity looked down at his feet, now feeling unable to meet Technoblade’s gaze. “Um… well, I don’t really use the shapeshifting ability that much. I-” Quackity’s voice broke a little bit. “I just got excited. Yeah… I rarely ever use it. I thought I told you when we first met.”

“Well, you didn’t.” Techno felt a little bad for Quackity, but he felt more betrayed and angry that he had never been told this.

“You think I don’t know that now?” Quackity glared up at Technoblade. “You’ve been telling me this for five minutes now!” He snapped, before quickly shrinking back. “Sorry, yeah uh, I just never use it. Uh, the first time I used my ability, my family was horrified, because I turned into something…” He trailed off. “Yeah. I couldn’t stand the looks they gave me, and I promised I’d rarely ever use it again. So, it’s my bad that I used it. I won’t use it again.”

Techno now had the guilty feeling wash over him, the angry feeling almost gone. “No! You can use it!” He slowly moved closer towards Quackity. “Hey, it’s my bad. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I dont think it’s _weird_ , per say, it’s just odd.”

“Those are synonyms, Technoblade.” Quackity glanced at Techno and back down at his feet.

“...oh.” Technoblade paused. “Uh, as you can see, I’m not good at putting my thoughts into words. It’s not weird, it’s strange.”

“Techno.” Quackity now looked at Techno, his lips pursing together. “Those are still the same things. Just forget it dude. I think I get what you mean though.” His hands subconsciously moved towards the water again. “Like, it’s just kinda… strange.”

Techno nodded in agreement. “Uh, can I ask some questions about your ability..?”

Quackity nodded, his eyes still glued to the water. His fight or flee instincts on high alert. After feeling threatened from Technoblade’s voice raising, he wanted to flee. He wanted to turn into a duck and swim away into the water, away from the boat. Maybe he would reach an island to live on, where he would be alone with him and his shapeshifting abilities. Or maybe he would just keep swimming for forever, and be stuck with his thoughts. He would be fine with either, right now.

“So…” Techno moved closer and closer to Quackity. “Can you turn into just a duck?”

“Nope.” Quackity popped the p. “Most hybrid shapeshifters can only turn into what their animal half is. I don’t know why, but…” Quackity took a deep breath. “Um… I can turn into anything.”

“Anything?” Techno’s eyes widened.

“Anything.” Quackity agreed. “But it takes a lot of energy for me to turn into things other than a duck. I get tired extremely easily, and based on the size of what I'm turning into compared to my height, I can stay in shape for either fifteen minutes or up to an hour.”

Techno hummed, showing he understood. “That could be useful.”

“I don’t like using my powers for evil, Techno.”

“Who said it would be for evil?”

Quackity looked up from the water and was met with a piglin hybrid extremely close to him. Maybe a few inches away from where he sat. “The few people I’ve told wanted to use it for evil.” He murmured, tucking his wings close to him. “There was this one guy, Schlatt. He was a ram hybrid, and we were good friends. He liked money. And I mean _really_ liked money. The first time I told him I could shapeshift, he asked if I could shapeshift into…” He held his breath for a few minutes. “Nevermind.”

Techno let it go, and glanced towards the duck’s wings. “Okay, cool. Next question.” He brought his hands up and brushed his fingers through the wings, and watched them quiver for a few seconds. “When you’re a duck, your feathers look like a duckling’s feathers. Have your wings not grown up into an adult duck’s wings, or..?”

Quackity quickly tucked his wings closer into his back, not letting Techno pet his wings. “I do not like talking about that, but yes. Most duck’s wings are grown by the time they’re eighteen to twenty one, but here I am, twenty years old, still with yellow wings.”

“Are you a specific type of duck? Like, are your wings supposed to grow in later?”

“I’m a muscovy duck. That’s the type of duck I am. Most muscovy duck hybrids get their colorful feathers when they hit puberty, so like, twelve to fifteen years old. That’s when we molt and shed off our yellow feathers, and get the colorful feathers. I still have… well, the boring feathers.” He let out a small laugh.

“I don’t think they’re boring.” Techno murmured, bringing his hand closer to Quackity’s wings. “They have brown on the tips, and there are a few green feathers. They may be mostly yellow, but they’re still unique.”

Quackity’s breath hitched and wanted to shrink away into nothing. His wings however, refused to follow what his mind was thinking. They stretched out more, welcoming the warm touch. Techno smirked at the wings leaning closer to Techno, and he petted them more.

The haze feeling was slowly dragging Quackity back in. As his wings kept getting pet, all he wanted to do was shut his eyes and sink into the abyss. But once he let out a chirp, he opened his eyes quickly and his hand bolted towards the ocean, scooping up ocean water into the palm of his hand and splashing techno with it.

“ _No._ ” He said sternly. “You wanted questions about my shapeshifting ability. You did _not_ want to watch me let my guard down.” He spread out his wings, trying to intimidate the piglin hybrid. “I allowed you to preen my wings once. I never allowed you to always preen them whenever you wanted.” he splashed more water at Techno’s face.

Techno wiped the salt water out of his eyes, blinking a few times. “Okay. Sorry.” He moved away from Quackity. “But last time I preened your wings, you really liked it.”

“Last time I scratched your hair, you started purring. I wouldn’t be talking here.” Quackity shot back, before pausing to think about what he said. “Wait-”

“You scratched my hair?”

“Well, I also braided your hair, but- shit. I’m making this worse for me, aren’t I?” Quackity blushed in embarrassment and went back to looking at the water.

“Is that why the braid is tighter than normal?” Techno tugged at his braid a little bit. “You did a good job.”

“I know I did. It’s the bird instincts. I haven’t made a nest in a long time, and my hands were itching to do something, and your poorly put together braid was right there. It was nothing, really. Just forget about it. Please.” Quackity muttered, tucking his soft wings close to him.

Techno said nothing and looked ahead again, and they settled back into their peaceful quiet.

Quackity would never admit this, but he liked the way Techno recognized his mistake, and comforted the duck hybrid. It felt nice, being able to have someone by your side when you needed to be comforted.

Techno would never admit this, but he liked the way Quackity looked when he got flustered. It felt nice to poke fun at other people and get their reactions, especially reactions that left the duck hybrid blushing.

But they were just friends.

And so they kept sailing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I know, it's been a hot second haha  
> It was my birthday on thursday, and I spent the weekend with my family, so sorry about the late uploads!
> 
> Also, I do know this was kinda rushed, but this was just a background chapter for the !ShapeshifterQuackity. I know it wasn't my best work, but I'll try to make it up in the next chapter.
> 
> With that being said, bye, and see you soon! Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	6. Limits

The lingering question kept me up

Two a.m., who do you love?

I wonder till I'm wide awake

\--

At this point, the duo had lost track of time. They had been sailing for god knows how long. The days and the nights had merged into one big glob of time.

Quackity had kept his hand in the water for a long time now. After their little pause a few days ago to allow Quackity to swim, they hadn’t stopped since then, and being a duck hybrid, and being forced to look at water you couldn’t swim in, was never a good mix..

At some points his fingers brushed up against fish scales, and he would shiver. Other times, his hand got caught in something slimy, and he would shriek and quickly pull his hand out of the water, just to find out that his hand touched some seaweed.

The day was never boring with the duo.

At one point when they were sailing, the boat dipped when the waves rose up. Quackity screamed, and was pummeled by a wave of water. Techno was at the back on the boat, so he got a little wet, but not as wet as Quackity got.

The duck hybrid shook out his wings, droplets of water falling down back into the ocean. He turned to face Techno, a frown on his face. The sight of the soaking wet duck was humorous to Techno, and he stifled a laugh.

“Stop.” Quackity said, and Techno laughed more. “No, stop. That isn’t funny!” He whined.

“It kind of is.” Techno said, still laughing. “You look like a poor little duck. It’s like… extremely funny.”

“I am a poor duck!” Quackity squawked, his hands moving towards his wings.

  
  
  


By nightfall, Quackity still had his hands in the water, and his back ached.

His wings were still full of water, and the usually soft and fluffy wings now felt heavy on his back. He leaned forwards, trying to get his wings in a different position, and let out a small sigh of relief when his wings laid flat on his back. His back would still ache, but at least they ache would be spread out evenly.

Sure, it did look funny that he laid flat on the side of the boat, looking like he was about to topple into the water, but whatever worked, worked.

“Hey Quackity… you good?”

“No.” Quackity groaned, his hand moving up to one of his wings. “I’m in pain and suffering.”

“Why?”

“Well, some dipshit laughed at me when I got soaking wet, and didn’t help me tend to my wings.” He sent a glare towards the piglin hybrid.

Techno kept his gaze unwavering. “You told me your wings were off limits. So I thought that you would help yourself. It’s not my fault.”

“W- I- Well, you-” Quackity stuttered out, unable to form a sentence. “You need permission to preen my wings. Wings are delicate, you could easily break them.”

“I know this, birdy. Just get a move on.”

Quackity paused for a second to stare at Techno after he said the nickname before continuing. “Anyways, they can break easily and oh my fucking god, broken wings hurt like hell. However,” He paused, scooting closer to the piglin hybrid. “I trust you. You also just… preen wings really well. Like, _really_ , really well. I’m not sure how, but you just do.” He spread his wings out and turned away from Techno. “So uh, you can preen them.”

Techno moved his hands towards the wings before pausing. “Is that a request or a command.”

“Request.”

“Sounds like a command. Ask nicely and I’ll help preen your wings.”

“Wha- no, you asshole! I complimented you, just- just preen my wings!”

“Quackity.” Techno’s voice dipped and he leaned closer to the duck hybrid’s ear. “Ask nicely.”

Quackity’s breath got caught in his throat and for a split second, he couldn’t breathe. The way Techno spoke sent a small shiver down his spine, and his wings twitched impulsively. “Uh… please preen my wings.” He managed to stammer out. “Please.” He murmured.

Techno hummed in response and brought his hands up to the duck’s wings, and started smoothing out the feathers. “How’d you manage to get the feathers so wet? They’re usually so soft.” He murmured.

“Yeah, boy I wonder. Almost as if you saw what happened.” Quackity murmured back. Every small touch on his wings sent his wings fluttering. The hands slowly getting the dirt, grime, and water out of his wings felt nice on his aching back.

The haze was dragging him in, and he fought against it. No matter how nice Techno’s calloused hands felt on his wings, he had to stay alert and ready for any sense of trouble. The open ocean was always dangerous.

However, he did let out a few quiet chirps every now and then.

He felt hands leave his wings and he let out a sigh of relief, feeling his wings. They weren’t soaking wet anymore, but they were still damp.

“Thank you.” He murmured out, moving back to the front of the boat, where he usually was.

“Of course.” Techno replied. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you so awkward when I bring up your wings? My dad has wings, and he isn’t uncomfortable towards me when I bring them up.”

“Well, your dad is family. It’s not weird because you two are related- are you related? Whatever, I’m not gonna ask that right now. Anyways- when it’s between two people who aren't blood related, preening wings is a very intimate process, and it used to just be me and my family who preened my wings. So having someone who isn’t family preen my wings is very…” Quackity trailed off. “Awkward.”

“It shouldn’t be. We’ve been friends, one would think it would be normal.” Techno got comfortable towards the back of the boat. “Or like, are ducks just normally skittish?”

“The word friends doesn’t mean to get intimate with in my book.” Quackity muttered, flapping his wings a little bit. “Friends means to get to know people, but to have limits. At least, that’s what it means in my book.”

“Then we should make some limits.” Techno stared at the water, watching it pass by.

Quackity nodded, taking out his sleeping bag and drying his feathers with the cotton bag. He took a mental note in his mind to purchase some towels if they ever pass through a town while they walk. “So, do you wanna just toss out ideas and we can decide where our limits are?”

Techno nodded. “Okay, lets start off with preening wings. Are you okay with that?”

Quackity was silent for a few minutes, watching the waves roll by. “Well, that’s difficult. I’m fine with _you_ specifically doing it, but nobody else other than my family or myself.” He looked up at Techno. “So, I guess I’m okay with that. But you can only do it if I say you can.”

“Reasonable.” Techno grunted. “And I know you scratched my hair, because apparently you heard me purr. I’m fine with you doing that, just ask next time.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll ask. Sorry if-”

“It’s fine, Quackity.” Techno dug two apples out of their food storage and tossed one to Quackity, who caught it easily. “I needed a new braid anyways.” He took a bite out of the apple. “Anyways, so what else… I suspect stuff like handshakes and holding hands are okay?”

“Holding hands?!” Quackity gasps. “Before marriage? How dare you!” He laughed. “Uh, but yeah. That’s okay. Not romantic hand holding though.”

“Of course.”

“Hmm… in my opinion, hugs aren’t really okay.”

“Yeah, no hugs.” Techno nodded. “That could easily be perceived as romantic.”

“And no kisses too.”

“Obviously.”

“No tongue, either.”

“Quackity, I think at this point it’s obvious what the line is. Nothing romantic until we say it is.” Techno took another bite of the apple and spat some seeds into the water. “Basically, consent.”

“Yeah.” Quackity’s wings fluttered and he went to look back at the water. “Um, I think light flirting is fine though, because we both know everything is platonic and like eighty percent of my humor is me flirting, and I’m not funny without it.”

“‘Kay.”

Quackity flicked his hand to get rid of the water on his hand, and looked up at the piglin hybrid, narrowing his eyes. “You seem down with literally anything I say, Techno.”

“Yeah, because I’m fine with anything, Quackity. That’s how I am, I’m pretty chill.” Techno shrugged and threw the apple core into the water, because he was done with his apple. “Now, are you gonna eat that apple or not? Cause I’m still hungry-”

“You’re avoiding the subject, Techno.” Quackity threw the apple towards Techno, who took a bite quickly. “What do you not want? This is a two way street, afterall.”

Techno kept chewing, taking rapid bits out of the apple. “My mouth is full. Can’t talk right now.” He took another bite out of the apple. “I can’t talk, it would be impolite.”

Quackity scooted over to where Techno was sitting and snatched the half-eaten apple from his hands, throwing it into the water. The two watched the apple sink below the surface, into the dark.

“...my apple.”

“Can’t stay silent now, motherfucker!” Quackity’s wings spread out, blocking Techno from moving anywhere else on the boat, even though he would’ve been able to see Techno from anywhere on the small boat.

Techno’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t make me talk.”

“It’s really easy to talk though!” Quackity smiled bitterly. “Just tell me what you want out of this deal, man! It’s not too hard!”

Techno leaned forward, his face inches away from Quackity’s. “Want me to be honest?” His voice was a lower pitch, the same pitch he whispered in Quackity’s ear with earlier. “Fine. As long as I know it was platonic, I would be down with anything. We could make out for all I care, and as long as we both agreed it was platonic, I would be fine with it.”

Quackity’s eyes betrayed his hand, and he looked down at Techno’s lips for a split second, before looking back up. He bit back a sly reply that was itching to come out.

“I’m just respecting what you want.” Techno leaned back again. “All I care about is my hair, and I already said you could braid it. So, we’re good. Because I trust you, and you trust me.”

Quackity stared at Techno, his gaze unmoving, before his mind forced him to tear his gaze away. “Yeah, okay. Okay.” he moved back to where he originally was. He began to notice a pattern, where he would get mad and move closer to Techno, before moving back. And then Techno would move closer to him, comfort him, and move back to where he was.

Quackity cleared his throat. “Anyways. If we get to a town, we should buy some towels. So my wings could dry quicker.”

“We can do that, we don’t have much money, but since you apparently wanna live that good life, we can get you some towels, instead of just having to deal with it.”

Quackity sent a small glare towards Techno, and muttered a string of curses under his breath before lying down on his now damp sleeping bag. “We should also get some new clothes. There’s only so much smell I can stand.”

Techno snorted. “Oh yeah? Try having an enhanced smell like me. We both stink.” He also laid down, both of them staring up into the sky on the opposite sides of the boat.

Quackity kicked Techno’s foot playfully before sighing, falling into a deep silence for a few minutes.

“It’s a shame we were in the snow during summer. We don’t have much warmth left, and I barely saw the stars.” Quackity murmured.

“The stars?”

“Yeah. The stars. I love the stars.” Quackity nodded, not being able to tear his gaze away from the stars. It was a clear night, so he finally got to see the stars. “I was able to see Virgo one night while we were in the snow, but after that… I never saw Virgo again. Now, if you look up, you can see Libra.” He traced the star pattern with his fingers, before pointing up directly at it. “See?”

“Quackity, I can not see where you’re pointing.”

“Then get over here and find out what I am looking at.” Quackity looked at Techno, his smile dropping a little bit. “If you want to. We’re not gonna touch, promise. I just want you to see what I’m looking at.”

Techno moved beside Quackity. “I told you already, it’s fine. Now, show me where you were pointing again?”

The worry that had somehow appeared in Quackity’s stomach disappeared almost instantly, and he went back to pointing at the stars, showing Techno every constellation that was in the sky.

“You know the constellations, right?”

“The basic ones, yeah. ‘The big dipper’ this and ‘the little dipper’ that.”

Quackity shoved him playfully. “Put some respect on the dipper’s names!” He laughed.

He ignored the spark of anger he saw in Techno’s eyes when he shoved him, and continued to tell him about all of the stars.

  
  
  


The next days were spent with laughter and complaints about being hungry.

“Techno, please! Something other than bread!”

“Do you see any other food in here? Someone threw our last apple into the ocean, so we’re stuck with what we have.”

“There’s fish in the ocean!”

“Do you see a fishing rod over here? I don’t think so. Oh no- don’t you dare-”

“Quack!” The shapeshifter had turned into his duckling state, and jumped out of the boat.

“You’re slowing us down!” Techno yelled after Quackity.

The duck just turned around and quacked again, before diving down into the water. Techno stared at the water, getting nervous when the duck didn’t appear after a while.

But soon, out popped a duck with a salmon stuck in between its beak, wiggling around. Quackity shapeshifted back into a human, and still had the salmon now in between his human teeth. He let out a sound of surprise when the fish tried wiggling out more. He quickly grasped it in his hands, and tried to keep the fish above water. At some point, he threw it onto the boat.

“Kill it!”

Techno took out his sword and mercilessly drove it into the fish.

  
  
  


“This is good salmon!”

“Yeah. Good catch, Quackity.”

  
  
  


Every day was spent with giggles and complaints, but nights were different.

Every night, Quackity laid awake, thinking about the words Techno said a few days before.

_“We could make out for all I care, and as long as we both agreed it was platonic, I would be fine with it.”_

Quackity’s wings fluttered at the thought of the words, and his stomach filled with butterflies. He quickly shook those feelings away, and tried thinking about other things.

  
  
  


Some nights, the sea air got too cold, and he would wake up as a duck, his feathers fluffed out amongst the cold. He did always feel warmer those nights he accidentally shape shifted.

  
  
  


It was the tenth day of being on the boat, and Quackity was sick of the sea. Now, he didn't want his hand anywhere near the ocean. His hands would get wrinkly, and he didn’t like the feeling. He missed the pond where he grew up. He could drink that water, at least. Albeit, the water wasn’t clean, but he could still drink it nonetheless.

Now, the duo were surviving off the short water supply they had left.

They had passed ocean monuments, and found no good loot.

Quackity wished he could see land again. He was laid face down on the wood of the boat, now not caring if he got splinters.

“Look!” Techno gasped.

Quackity just groaned back in response.

“No, actually. Land!” Techno moved closer to Quackity, shaking the duck hybrid. “Dude! Look up from the wood, land!”

Quackity lifted his head slowly, making a grunt of acknowledgement of the light streaming into his face, and blinked a few times. Once his eyes got used to the sunlight, he could make out a small outline of land. His eyes widened and he quickly sat up, scurrying to the front of the ship to look at the land in front of him. “I think there’s a town over there. We scored, Techno! Maybe we could find some towels, and food, and- do you think they have bottled water?”

“I think they’ll have everything we need. Including a respawn bed. We desperately need that.”

Quackity nodded his head in agreement. Respawn beds were in each town that he had ever passed through, but they worked in a strange way. The respawn beds could only work in a certain area. Once you left that area, you were back to the chance of dying forever again.

“Do you think there are hybrids there?” Quackity looked back at techno, who was staring on ahead.

“...shit. There’s probably just villagers. They’re gonna send us some glares, like always.” He looked down at Quackity. “Don't you ruffle your feathers, birdy. I’ll just send glares right back at them, and they’ll leave us alone.”

Quackity’s brows furrowed. “I can defend myself too, y’know?”

“You can’t defend yourself too well, though. You probably couldn’t take all the villagers on by yourself. I could though.” He looked up towards the town again. “Besides, who has the sword, again?”

Quackity rolled his eyes and looked at the land ahead, his heart hopeful.

  
  
  


Once they reached the town, they docked their small boat, that they would never use again, and looked towards the main area of town.

“...I know we said no hand holding, but this won't be romantic. I’m just nervous.” Quackity looked up at Techno. “Can I uh… hold your hand?”

A small smile appeared on Techno’s face. “‘Course you can, birdy.”

And so, the two walked into town together, holding hands.

“I don’t like that nickname _birdy_ , by the way.”

“Deal with it, birdy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really liked writing the limits scene  
> and also that's the most romantic tension i'll give you guys for the week :]  
> /j /j  
> ...unless??
> 
> Kudos and Comments are appreciated!


	7. Town

This is me praying that this was the very first page

Not where the story line ends

\--

The town was small.

There were a few houses on the outskirts of the town, but the dock of the town was deserted. When Techno hopped out of the boat, he dragged Quackity out, who’s mood had changed rapidly. He went from being excited to see land to being petrified to see land.

Now, the two were in town _holding hands._

Quackity looked around at the villagers who lived in the town. They were all staring at him. Or, mainly, his wings.

He knew they didn’t see him as a human. They saw him as someone who was part bird. Someone who could inflict damage and pain on them if he really tried.

They saw him as a monster.

And yet he knew that the villagers weren’t worried. If he tried to attack them, they had iron golems to protect them. If he tried to attack him, they would kill him immediately.

They also saw him as weak.

His wings started to puff up, and he forced them down. He didn't want anyone to feel threatened.

Techno was just staring straight ahead. “Where are the shops..?” The piglin hybrid muttered, looking around at the buildings in the area.

Quackity wasn’t looking at the shops. All he knew was the looks and the stares that the villagers were giving him. “Techno.” Quackity whispered, tugging Techno’s arm down to get his attention. “Techno. I- I can't do this.”

Techno glanced down at the duck hybrid and then towards the crowds. “Sure you can.”

“No.” Quackity shook his head quickly. “I can’t. Techno, they’re staring.”

“We’re new. That’s why they’re staring.” Techno kept his voice monotone as he talked.

“It’s because we’re hybrids, Techno. No villager welcomes hybrids.” Quackity still forced his wings to not flare up. “Can’t we just quickly move through town? We don’t need to get anything-”

“We are running low on food, Quackity. We need to buy things. And we both need a respawn bed to sleep in, or else we’re both screwed.”

“I know, but can we just…” Quackity trailed off and his grip on Techno’s hand tightened. He dragged Techno towards a small crack in between buildings.

“What- Quackity, we have things to do! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“You got a jacket? If so hand it over right now.” Quackity demanded. 

“Quackity, what’s going on?” Techno eyed Quackity up and down. The duck hybrid was never this angry. Wait- no. The duck hybrid was never this _scared_.

“Is that a no on the jacket then?” Quackity’s wings started to quiver.

Techno sighed. “No, Quackity. I do not have a jacket for you.”

Quackity bit his lip while he weighed his options. “Fine.” He muttered. “Uh, I’m gonna ask you to turn away from me and face the other direction while I do something.”

Techno narrowed his eyes but nodded, turning around and staring at the crowds of people walking by. For how small the village was, it sure had a lot of people in it.

When Quackity let Techno turn back around to look at him, it appeared as if his wings were gone.

Techno was silent for a few minutes as he watched Quackity shuffle his feet nervously. “...surprise?”

“What kind of witchcraft is this?” Techno asked. “Who are you and what have you done with Quackity’s wings?”

Quackity looked down at the ground. “Shapeshifting powers come in handy when you don’t want people to stare at you.”

“But your wings are pretty. I don’t think people are staring at you for bad reasons.”

“Techno, thanks for the compliment. But you know I don’t like it when people stare.”

“You seem to like it when _I_ stare.”

Quackity’s eyes widened a little bit and his face turned red. “I- Well- You- Motherfucker this is the second time you’ve left me speechless. Let’s just get a move on and go buy things.” he grumbled, walking towards the city streets again.

“No, but really. Why do you like it when I stare!” Techno teased as he followed Quackity.

  
  
  


Quackity quickly got over what Techno said. It was one of his many great accomplishments. He learned how to not be affected by words for long.

While the two were in the shops, Quackity realized how shy Techno really was. The piglin hybrid refused to talk.

“Techno, what do you think about getting something other than bread?” Quackity looked up at Techno, and he just shrugged.

“So… is that a yes?” Techno shrugged again.

“Okay. That’s a yes in my book. Bread gives me a stomach ache anyways. I’m not too fond of bread, but I can eat it…” He went on a ramble about bread as he looked around the store some more.

“Oh! Techno what about dried fruit? I like dried fruit!”

Another shrug.

Quackity decided to just buy what he wanted. If Techno threw a fit later, that wasn’t his fault. He also bought a few towels too. Supermarkets truly did have everything.

When the duo walked up to the cash register, the cashier scanned all of the items. “Forty dollars.”

“What? No, buddy. I did the math. It should be thirty dollars.” Quackity looked at the items. “Look, both the three towels are eight bucks and all the rest of the food and drinks adds it up to thirty.”

“Forty.” The cashier said again. “The extra ten bucks are tax.”

“We barely have anything! No way in hell is there ten bucks in tax-”

A gold bar was dropped between Quackity and the cashier. Techno narrowed his eyes at the cashier.

“Fine! Take your items! This gold bar will do just fine! Yup! Gold is fine too!” The cashier laughed nervously, sliding the items towards Quackity. The duck hybrid took the items and passed a few towards Techno, looking up at the piglin and gave a small smile to him, before leaving the store.

“It definitely wasn’t tax.” Quackity muttered. Techno nodded in agreement.

“I can’t wait to get to the DreamSMP. Then, we won’t have people like that! We’ll be able to buy things with a reasonable tax price, if there are taxes over there! God, I hope there’s no taxes over there.”

  
  
  


The two looked up at the inn. It wasn’t too shabby looking, they definitely kept it in peak condition.

“Do you think they’ll have a respawn bed?” Quackity turned to Techno, who nodded.

“Definitely. Every inn or hotel I’ve been to has had a respawn bed. I understand that they’re expensive, but trust me, every village I’ve been to is somehow rich. They’ll have one for sure.” Techno kept staring up at the inn, and looked down at Quackity’s hand, who managed to find its way into Techno’s hand again.

He gave it a small squeeze and smiled. “We’ll be fine.”

“We don’t have much money left…” Quackity mumbled. “What if they make us spend more money than we should here? We’ll definitely go broke.”

“We could always sneak into one of the rooms.”

“That’s true.” Quackity murmured. “If we are gonna get a room, then we should do it now. I already feel myself getting tired. I’ve been in this shape for too long.” He walked forward, dragging Techno along with him, as his grip on the hand didn’t loosen in the slightest.

When they entered the inn, the bell made some little _ding!_ sounds. The innkeeper looked up from where her desk was, and gave a warm smile.

The first thing Quackity noticed about her, was that her hair wasn’t human. It was like sheep's wool. He smiled back and dragged Techno closer to the desk. “Um… do you have a room for two?”

The woman looked down at the keys by her desk. “I don’t have one for two, but I have some for one, if that’s okay?” She looked back up at the two and gave an apologetic smile.

Quackity opened his mouth to speak, but Techno spoke first. “That’s fine.”

The sheep-haired woman looked down at the two holding hands and let out a small sigh of relief. “That’s great! Here’s your keys,” She placed the keys in Quackity’s open hand, and nodded towards the stairs. “Room number fourteen, twist the key to the left to open your door, twist it to the right to lock it. You can leave and enter whenever, and we don’t have any warm water. Sorry about that.”

Quackity was still speechless by Techno accepting the one room suite. “Yeah, no problem.” Techno nodded his head in thanks, and snatched the key from Quackity’s hand, nudging him along towards the stairs. “Oh! I didn’t catch your name. You are..?”

“Call me Puffy.”

“Thank you Puffy.” Techno said, nudging Quackity alone more, before grabbing his hand after Quackity stumbled a bit. “You okay?” Techno murmured in Quackity’s ear as he walked up the stairs. “You seem kinda dazed.”

Quackity glared at Techno as he shook Techno’s hand away. “Of course I’m fine! But you seem okay with one room!”

“It’s the only room they had. I refuse to sleep in my sleeping bag right now, Quackity.”

“One room means one bed!” Quackity squawked, quickly covering his mouth.

“You’re fine. Nobody’s around. Quack and squawk all you like, because it looked like the lady at the front was a sheep hybrid. I’m sure she would understand.” Techno reached toward Quackity's wrists and pulled them down to his sides. “I promise, you’re okay.”

Quackity nodded slowly and turned around to look at the hallway of doors. “What room did she say again?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen. Right.” Quackity nodded and rushed down the hallway, his eyes scanning the numbers briefly before moving onto the next number. “Ten… Eleven… Twelve… Thirteen… Fourteen! Here we go! This room Techno!”

The door seemed to be made out of dark wood, and the number next to the door was faded, but you could still tell it was fourteen. Techno walked towards the door and unlocked it with a _click_!

Quackity bolted inside, jumping onto the bed and grabbing the sheets. “Comfy…” He muttered, wings sprouting out of his back again. He flapped them a few times and smiled, nuzzing closer into the sheets. “If I sleep now, you could sleep at night.” He muttered.

“No way. Your sleep schedule will be ruined.”

“Is that really my problem, though?”

“...yeah. It is your problem, because you’ll be whining about how tired you are and then it will become my problem.” Techno huffed, setting down his things. “We could just sleep together.”

Quackity’s eyes shot open and he quickly sat up on the bed. “No way dude!”

“Why?”

“W-What the fuck? What do you mean _why_?! That’s weird dude!”

“It’s not weird unless you make it weird.” Techno rummaged through all of their food. “I mean, I don’t care. I can sleep on the ground if you want me to. You seem pretty fine with taking the bed.”

“I mean, you need to make sure you respawn here too.” Quackity said, watching Techno move through the bags and take out some bread. “Otherwise you’re gonna be set back thousands of miles.”

“You need to make sure you respawn too. Therefore, we sleep in the same bed, and we get the respawn point at the same time, and there’s no reason for us to stay here longer than we need to.” He handed half a loaf to Quackity, who took it and sighed.

“I mean, sure. Fine. We can sleep in the same bed. It seems reasonable. I mean, I’m okay with it. And-”

“I’m okay with it.” Techno shrugged as he took a bite of food. “So I think we’re good, yeah.”

Quackity gave a small nod and took a bite, twisting his face up. “Oh…” He muttered, spitting out the bread. “Gross…”

Techno stared at the bread. “What? Tastes fine to me.”

“It’s not the taste. Well, it kinda is. I thought we bought the good bread.”

“Good bread?”

“Yeah. The reason I brought the odd tasting bread on our trip originally was cause it’s the only bread that doesn’t give me a stomach ache.”

“...you get stomach aches from bread? Are you allergic to gluten?”

“Kind of? I mean, you shouldn’t feed bread to ducks because it’s bad for them, so I guess that kinda was passed onto me, but instead of it being super bad for me, I just get bad stomach aches. But this one bread my family buys is like, fake bread? Anyways, it doesn’t get me stomach aches.”

“...oh. So will this bread give you a stomach ache?”

“Probably. And I don’t wanna test if it doesn’t. Cause there’s like an eighty percent chance I will get a stomach ache.” he placed the bread down on the floor and moved towards the bed, rummaging through it and taking out some sunflower seeds.

“Damn. You really are a duck, birdie. Can you quack for me next?”

Needless to say, techno was pelted by a few sunflower seeds.

  
  
  


When the sun started creeping down into the hills, Quackity was already in bed. It was amazing how much shapeshifting could tire someone, even from such a small change as hiding your wings.

Techno watched the sun roll down the hills, flicking his ears at every snore that came from the bed. The duck definitely looked peaceful. He let out a small sigh and moved closer to the bed. He made sure not to touch Quackity in any way, even going as far as to tuck the duck’s wing behind his back before relaxing into the sheets.

Quackity was right about earlier, the bed was extremely comfortable.

Techno felt a small shiver run down his spine. Ah, great, his respawn was now set. He senk down closer and closer into bed, and let sleep overtake him.

  
  
  


Of course, Quackity had to be the first one to wake up. When we woke up, he felt uncomfortable. Ah, his wing. It was under his back. He shifted so his wings were in the open and he stretched them until they started to flutter.

And then it hit him. Holy shit. His arms were wrapped around Techno’s waist. He forced down a shout of surprise, and decided to just struggle. He struggled away from the piglin hybrid and pressed as close to the wall as he could get.

And oh my god, how much could this piglin sleep for? He was still asleep even after Quackity struggled away from him. Quackity breathed heavily, his face now red from embarrassment. Techno must have felt him wrap around his stomach. Did he just let it happen?

“You done freaking out?” Techno asked, opening one eye to look at Quackity. “It was no big deal.”

“I- Wha- You asshole!” Quackity managed out. “You couldn’t have just moved me off of you?”

“You would have woken up and embarrassed yourself during the night. That is worse than embarrassing yourself when you wake up.” Techno moved out of the respawn bed and handed the half eaten pack of sunflower seeds to Quackity. “Since you can’t have bread, I suppose that will do?”

Quackity carefully took the seeds. “I mean.. yeah- are you seriously just gonna brush off this situation like it’s nothing?”

Techno yanked the hair-tie out of his hair and started to undo his braid. “I mean… yeah? There’s no reason to make a big deal out of this type of stuff.” He brushed his fingers through his hair. “Oh, that reminds me. You did a really good job at braiding my hair last time. Can you braid it again? There’s no need to bush out my hair, just braid it.” He handed the hair-tie to Quackity and turned around.

“Guess I have to now?”

“Yup.”

The rest of the morning involved Quackity overthinking things, and Techno getting a new braid in his hair.

  
  
  


When they packed up all of their things, they moved to the front desk and returned the key. “Thank you, Puffy.” Techno said. “Uh, is it possible you know directions to the DreamSMP?”

“Oh, you two are going there too?”

“Yeah. Are you going to leave soon?”

“Oh, I’m not going to leave in a while. I need to scrape together some more money before I can leave. But just continue on the path out of town, and there’s a fork in the road. If you go left, you’ll make it towards a flower field. If you go right, you’ll go towards a ravine. Both ways will lead you towards the DreamSMP, but the flower forest is definitely easier to go through. Just keep going straight after that and you should make it to the DreamSMP in no time!”

“Thank you! We must get going though!” Quackity grabbed Techno by the wrist and yanked in away, rushing out of the shop. “Thanks again!” The duck hybrid called back before turning to Techno. “Alright, so I vote we go to the flower forest.”

“But… the ravine.”

“The ravine is probably scary and full of mobs! We’re going to the flower forest!”

Techno looked at Quackity for a few seconds before giving in. “Fine. We’ll go to the flower forest.”

Quackity jumped in the air with his fist to the sky, making a “ _Whoop!”_ sound before running off ahead, like he always did. Techno watched him go and shook his head, smiling before following after Quackity towards the flower forest.

  
  
  


The two totally didn’t argue as they reached the path about whether to go left or right.

“She said go left!”

“No, you’re just stupid. She said go right.”

“I’m telling you, Quackity, she said go left.”

“She said go right! Jesus Christ, you’re just deaf!” And just like that, he started walking right. “Nothing you can do can stop me!

And so, they went right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hzjsdgcfskdgsacsh sorry about the slow updates!  
> I'm now at the beginning of my last trimester, so I'm gonna be updating slower now to make sure all of my grades are good :)
> 
> also wtf when did 3,000 people decide to read this story uh thank you-


End file.
